Measuring human rights violations in a conflict-affected country

Measuring human rights violations in a conflict-affected country : results from a nationwide cluster survey in Central African Republic.  Conflict and health ; vol. 5, no. 1, 2011:  14 p. 

(Open Access article, to read it click here)

A nationwide survey was conducted in the Central Africa Republic in 2009 to estimate the rates of human rights violations against children and adults affected by armed conflict.  Due to security and logistic constraints in the conflict setting, the survey was conducted using the "Neighbourhood Method" at the cost of less than 50,000 USD, which was developed at Columbia University. The authors demonstrated that the "Neighbourhood Method" is cost-effective and efficient to measure sensitive events such as rape and sexual abuse. The method enabled women to speak knowledgeably about their household experiences and anonymously disclose their neighbours' experience, which allowed the team to collect information from four households through one in-depth interview. In total, 599 women were interviewed about human rights violations in 2,370 household representing 13,699 persons. The results showed that rape and abduction were the most frequent grave violations.

SJ-W / RCT